Published 7:00 pm, Friday, April 24, 2009

"There are videos when I was 7 or 8 years old putting on plays in my house," said the 2000 Midland High School graduate.

At MHS, Brown and his friends "just started making film projects for everything we could at school."

After high school, Brown graduated from Trinity University in San Antonio. He came back to Midland for a short time and worked for Jon Lindgren at Via Media, a local Christian production company.

Lindgren said almost everyone who works for him dreams of making it in the film industry, and Brown was no exception.

"One day he said 'I think I'm going to go to L.A. and start my own career' and I said 'good luck,'" Lindgren recalled. "It can be done, I guess."

Brown is now working as an associate producer for the TV Guide Network and has lived in Los Angeles since September 2005.

At TV Guide Network, he spends his days "researching and writing biographic pieces on A-list celebrities like Will Smith and Angelina Jolie" for the show "Close-up" that airs at 7 p.m.

His real passion, however, are the films he creates in his own time.

Brown recently completed his second short film, "Obedience," which currently is online as part of The Doorpost Film Festival. Online viewers are encouraged to vote for their favorite film; the winner will receive a cash award. Voting ends Thursday.

The film is one of 100 chosen for the festival featuring films based on themes such as forgiveness, freedom, humility, joy and redemption. The seven-minute "Obedience" falls under the category of humility.

Brown initially created the film for the 168 Film Festival, a Christian project for which contestants draw a Bible verse and have 168 hours - one week - to complete a short film based on the Scripture.

Brown's team drew the verse Exodus 20:12: "Honor your mother and your father so that you may live long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you."

The week-long project, Brown said, was a "crash course in producing."

"All of it was extremely stressful, but also sort of a thrill," he said. "It was really a whirlwind."

Brown said he was satisfied with the completed project that follows lead actor Rene Scheys through a day in which nothing seems to go as planned. He said his film deals with the question of how God communicates with people.

"I really did like the story, I felt like the theme resonates with people," he said.

"I wanted something that would make you laugh and also make you cry (because) I think that's what life is like."

Lindgren, who won the 2005 Amazon/Tribeca Film Festival in New York with a project based on the story of a victim in the 1999 Columbine High School shooting, said theme-based Christian films - such as Brown's "Obedience" - often work with a broad audience.

"If you base your stories on real life, you're not really preaching the Bible," Lindgren explained. "That type of presentation is much more accepted in the general audience."

Naming "Braveheart," "Spiderman 2" and Pixar films as examples, Brown agreed Christian filmmakers should strive to tell stories that appeal to people on a spiritual level, but not alienate viewers.

Noting Christians within the music industry have created their own "replacement" genre, Brown indicated he would rather see Christians in the film industry succeed with a larger audience.

"The goal, in my opinion, is to make content that succeeds in the general marketplace and not just a Christian niche market," he said.

"Films are probably the purest form of capitalism there is; if people don't like it, they don't buy it."

Both Brown and Lindgren mentioned how the Internet is changing the film industry and giving viewers a larger spectrum of content from which to choose.

"What's happening is that it's no longer executives making decisions on what the audience should watch," explained Lindgren.

"Broadcast is now taking a lot of direction on the response from viewers on the Internet."

Sites such as YouTube allow amateur filmmakers to find an audience anywhere in the world.

"The barriers to entry (into filmmaking) are lower than they ever have been," noted Brown.

"Technology is advancing to the point where you can make a film anywhere."

The freedom for filmmakers to choose not to live in Hollywood is especially appealing for Brown who said L.A. has "an anti-family culture."

Brown hopes to see films coming from places other than the West Coast, particularly from his hometown.

"The youth in Midland, they just have a great sensitivity to what's interesting … and they still really hunger for an authentic spiritual life," he said. "It's a place where some great Christian filmmaking could occur."